


i had been lost to you, sunlight

by vasnormandy



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: 12x100, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29910039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vasnormandy/pseuds/vasnormandy
Summary: jolene is constant warmth, and erin misses cold water; jolene is constant light, and erin misses the pitch dark. yet she comforts her.    |     12 100-word scenes about what is lost in ascension, and what might be gained.
Relationships: Erin Jesaulenko/Jolene Willowtree
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	i had been lost to you, sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> format inspired by lewis attilio's baseball short stories (@pigeonize on medium), adapted for blaseball mostly by the baltimore crabs.

**1.**

countless stars above them. erin is fond of nighttime, when the sun in its awful blazing glory steps aside, and she can unwrap her blindfold, open her eyes. the surface world has its own kind of beauty, when it isn’t too painful to behold.

the grass she lies in with her sister is cool and damp. miah’s hand is in hers.

“what do you think it’ll be like up there?” miah asks.

“different,” is all she can imagine.

pinpricks of lovely light. one more championship will send them skyward. they two have ascended once already, out of indeterminable watery depths.

  
  


**2.**

the last series goes to a fifth game. erin keeps her rings on a leather cord, wrapped and doubled over her wrist. she fiddles with them. the noontime light cuts through fabric and shut eyelids, silhouettes geraldine on the mound, stretching.

“it could be death,” erin says. gerri hums. it’s still strange not to hear their voice doubled, tripled over.

“i slept with your sister,” she confesses.

“i know,” gerri says.

“before she got turned into - you know.”

“well,” they reply calmly, “i would hope you didn’t sleep with her after that.”

in spite of the looming dread, erin laughs.

  
  


**3.**

“you’ll be watching -”

“from the dugout. like always.” they sit together in the pitch dark of the empty locker room. miah’s eyes are wide and beautiful, swimming with blue iridescent light. she clasps both of erin’s hands.

the muffled roar of the stands rises. the crowd expects ascension.

“you’re gonna do great,” miah promises.

“i don’t -” erin’s voice cuts off in its throat. “i don’t want to go so far that we can’t get back home.”

“hey.” miah squeezes its hands. she’s smiling. she’s always known how to quiet her sister’s troubled, turning mind. “we’ll be okay. we’ll be together.”

  
  


**4.**

siobhan and neerie are on base. when hercules swings, and strikes the ball, it echoes like cannonfire.

erin hears the thud in the grass when herc throws vir bat aside, the frantic footfalls, the loudspeaker announcement. three runs in the bottom of the ninth - they’ve won. erin is in the dugout, her sister at her side, and then she isn’t.

drawn upward, onward. she screams, discordant music, a piercing note to bounce and echo back - the void around her swallows the sound. she can’t see. she scrabbles at her blindfold, tears it off -

the light blinds her, and she’s alone.

  
  


**5.**

“she needs to be somewhere dark,” niq is saying, “and damp. do you have anywhere like that?”

erin had flailed all through the rising, thrashed its body with all its might, fought to swim downward, to swim home, back to miah. it lies spent and useless in unfamiliar grass, its eyes squeezed shut against unfamiliar light.

“i got somewhere,” an unfamiliar voice answers back, and she feels herself lifted into unfamiliar arms. 

“we should organize search parties for the rest of our people,” niq is saying as the stranger carries erin away. “they could be up here,” but they aren’t.

  
  


**6.**

erin wakes among greenery.

it is not quite so dark as she would like, but dim enough to open her eyes without discomfort, the windows shuttered and painted over. the air is cool and damp. she pushes herself up from the floor, the pillows laid underneath her, and stares up at the bush of white blooms above her.

miah would know what sort of plant it is. she reaches up.

“don’t touch,” says the same voice, low and warm and bassy. “that’s a moonflower. they’re beautiful, but poisonous.”

erin turns to the sound, and all at once, again, is blinded.

  
  


**7.**

her name is jolene. she is grand and lovely, stands nearly seven feet. her skin is dark as earth, mistaken for it by the growth that wraps around her, the roots and blossoms. there is a wide hole in her chest occupied by a sun.

a sun. erin’s fucking bane.

jolene tries to be considerate of her photosensitive guest. she has taken to wearing a heavy poncho, and a thick rubber apron, to keep the light in. it shines through still, bathes her whole being in gold, but with its eyes shut tight, erin finds it can tolerate the glow.

  
  


**8.**

as her strength returns, jolene shows her the place that she has been condemned to.

she describes it to her as they walk, blindfold tight around erin’s eyes, describes how the grass moves in the absence of wind, how it shimmers iridescent. she describes her greenhouse, and her plants, describes the homes they’ve made - describes the core, the heart of machinery at the center of this place - describes the swirling cosmic sky.

she sits very still, and lets erin softly sing - lets the sound flow around her, bounce back, that erin might perceive the shape of her.

she’s very beautiful.

  
  


**9.**

as long as the games continue below, the georgias and mechanics are made to play each other. it’s a decent pastime. jolene says it makes a nice change, that up until now they’d been up here alone, and they’ve made out well for themselves, kept busy with the core, but it’s nice to have a little competition again.

“you’re just saying that because you’re winning,” erin complains, and jo laughs, deep and full.

then the games stop.

without warning, or even a word from management, and the world below goes on as if blaseball had never been played at all.

  
  


**10.**

in the dark room of the greenhouse, among the night blooming flowers, erin screams the awful songs of its limitless lungs. even its team do not dare approach, but jolene, bless her, does not know better.

she staggers through the sound, and when she reaches it, and wraps her arms around it, erin cannot find the strength to fight. the breath goes out of her. she sobs instead.

“i know,” jo murmurs, soft and soothing. she rubs small circles between erin’s shoulder blades.

“i wanted to go home,” erin rasps. its voice cracks. “i want to go home.”

“i know.”

  
  


**11.**

jolene is a comfort. erin lies against her, among the pillows piled on the greenhouse floor, and feels the heat that radiates from her center seep into its skin. jolene is constant warmth, and erin misses cold water; jolene is constant light, and erin misses the pitch dark. yet she comforts her.

“do you mind having to wear this around me?” erin tugs at jolene’s rubber smock.

“no,” jo says. she touches the edge of erin’s blindfold, and then brushes her cheek. “do you mind wearing this?”

“no,” erin answers. “not really.”

it’s worth it, is what she doesn’t say.

  
  


**12.**

jolene takes her to the edge of the plane, and they sit, their legs dangling high above the little earth below.

“you can open your eyes,” she says. “it’s dark here. and i tripled up on ponchos.”

erin laughs, and nods, and lets jo’s deft fingers unwrap her blindfold for her.

“oh,” jo whispers. “your eyes.” beautiful, watery, bioluminescent, swimming with light.

erin just stares at her - silent, for once, beholding her. she does not put a voice to how beautiful she finds her. doesn’t need to.

jolene kisses her, soft as anything, and far beneath them, the world spins.


End file.
